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Not sure about this...USARE? Do you mean USAREUR? Just never saw that acronym.

But to others' points...it just canot e the US. Other NATO need to beef up as well.

“We had been hopelessly labouring to plough waste lands; to make nationality grow in a place full of the certainty of God… Among the tribes our creed could be only like the desert grass – a beautiful swift seeming of spring; which, after a day’s heat, fell dusty.”
― T.E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph

Sure. They can take down the entire air base with little green men surrounding it and us not putting up a fight. You need over 100 missiles just for AVIANO alone and that's not counting the civilian airports and long range SAMs. That's what we have the F-22s for.

You can always come up with scenarios that would pit their strengths against our weaknesses and the truth is that we can't be strong at everything but do we have enough capability to have confidence?

What if tacair bases get hit by theater ballistic missiles and planes in the air are threatened by long range SAMs?

That seems to be what the Russians are putting together.

It doesn't seem like this combo can hold off NATO airpower indefinitely, but maybe the Russians can create windows of vulnerability to engage in ground operations?

Pretty short term solution. Aircraft from CONUS won't be eating any Iskanders and are less than 8 hours away.

The growing inventory of F-35Bs also make cratering runways ineffective at preventing stealth aircraft from operating from forward locations. When you can easily land and potentially even takeoff from an average parking lot sized strip of pavement, the list of suitable locations to disperse aircraft rapidly outpaces ballistic missile inventories.

Question, what makes you think their launch pads won't be bombed before they launch?

And what makes you think that at least half the birds won't be in the air before they launch?

I assume their launch vehicles will be disbursed and mobile. If it's at the start of conflict, or a situation we saw in Ukraine where the Russians used "negotiation” as a form of deception to delay decisive action from our political leaders, then they might also get the first shot.

I don't doubt that our birds will be in the air and able to find alternative facilities, but that will also affect their sortie rates.

I don't think the Russians can achieve durable air superiority over the battlefield, but what if their goal is to create opportunity to fight a short high intensity engagement and then use their entrenched position along with diplomatic means and strategic blustery to achieve a favorable outcome within their own definition?

A combination of hybrid war and limited conflict under modern conditions a la PLA thinking?

I think the Russians fully realize that we have superiority once our full conventional capabilities are brought to bear, but I think they also see that we are vulnerabilities can be amplified by weakness in our political leadership.

Thus they may perceive opportunities to combine military and political dimensions and strategic gamesmanship to achieve favorable outcomes.

This may merit reading. From Jeffrey Rathke, Senior Fellow and Deputy Director for the Europe Program, CSIS-
"...NATO reviewed its deterrence posture in 2012 and determined that, “in the current circumstances, the existing mix of capabilities and the plans for their development are sound.” But neither of the crucial post-Cold War circumstances – reduced tensions and increased transparency – exists today; indeed it is quite the opposite, with increasing tensions and a substantial loss of transparency and confidence. In 2008, Russia 'suspended' its implementation of the CFE treaty, which has effectively erased the limits that previously existed on Russia's conventional forces on NATO’s eastern flank. A last-ditch 2011 U.S.-led effort to revive conventional arms control with Russia was unsuccessful. Russia also increasingly circumvents the Vienna Document’s 6-week notification requirement for “scheduled” exercises by conducting no-notice, full combat readiness exercises, a category of activity not subject to the notification requirement. (According to the U.S. government, Russia remains in violation of the INF treaty as well, undermining the nuclear pillar of stability in Europe.)

The result, when coupled with Russia's post-2008 military modernization, has been a quantum leap in Russia's ability to amass forces and a substantial decrease in NATO's warning time. As Russia demonstrated in 2014 in Crimea and eastern Ukraine, when a 150,000-man exercise took place simultaneous with Russia’s intervention, it can concentrate forces along its western borders without significant warning to neighbors or to NATO allies. This has been underscored throughout 2014 and 2015 in other no-notice “snap” exercises, the largest of which numbered 100,000 troops. United States military officials estimate that Russia is able now to deploy 60,000 troops by air in a span of 72 hours, and they acknowledge that U.S. intelligence capabilities provide no significant advance indication or warning of the Russian “snap” exercises.

In these circumstances, NATO does not currently have the ability to repel a possible Russian attack or prevent Russia from occupying territory in the east, in particular along NATO’s eastern borders in Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Poland..."

This may merit reading. From Jeffrey Rathke, Senior Fellow and Deputy Director for the Europe Program, CSIS-
"...NATO reviewed its deterrence posture in 2012 and determined that, “in the current circumstances, the existing mix of capabilities and the plans for their development are sound.” But neither of the crucial post-Cold War circumstances – reduced tensions and increased transparency – exists today; indeed it is quite the opposite, with increasing tensions and a substantial loss of transparency and confidence. In 2008, Russia 'suspended' its implementation of the CFE treaty, which has effectively erased the limits that previously existed on Russia's conventional forces on NATO’s eastern flank. A last-ditch 2011 U.S.-led effort to revive conventional arms control with Russia was unsuccessful. Russia also increasingly circumvents the Vienna Document’s 6-week notification requirement for “scheduled” exercises by conducting no-notice, full combat readiness exercises, a category of activity not subject to the notification requirement. (According to the U.S. government, Russia remains in violation of the INF treaty as well, undermining the nuclear pillar of stability in Europe.)

The result, when coupled with Russia's post-2008 military modernization, has been a quantum leap in Russia's ability to amass forces and a substantial decrease in NATO's warning time. As Russia demonstrated in 2014 in Crimea and eastern Ukraine, when a 150,000-man exercise took place simultaneous with Russia’s intervention, it can concentrate forces along its western borders without significant warning to neighbors or to NATO allies. This has been underscored throughout 2014 and 2015 in other no-notice “snap” exercises, the largest of which numbered 100,000 troops. United States military officials estimate that Russia is able now to deploy 60,000 troops by air in a span of 72 hours, and they acknowledge that U.S. intelligence capabilities provide no significant advance indication or warning of the Russian “snap” exercises.

In these circumstances, NATO does not currently have the ability to repel a possible Russian attack or prevent Russia from occupying territory in the east, in particular along NATO’s eastern borders in Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Poland..."